The ruling on one who prostrates to an idol without intending to worship it
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
Honorable Shaykh! How do we respond to the one who says that if a person prostrates to an idol and does not intend to worship it, he does not fall into shirk (associating partners with Allah)?
Answer:
This is a clear falsehood to everyone that the one who prostrates to an idol is a disbeliever. As for hearts, we do not judge except by what is apparent; hearts are in the hand of Allah. We rule that the disbeliever and the one who associates partners with Allah, even if he dies without repenting, are to be treated as Muslims, and if he was previously a Muslim, he becomes an apostate from the religion of Islam. As for judging hearts, that is not for us; this belongs to Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He). Yes.
Honorable Shaykh! How do we respond to the one who says that if a person prostrates to an idol and does not intend to worship it, he does not fall into shirk (associating partners with Allah)?
Answer:
This is a clear falsehood to everyone that the one who prostrates to an idol is a disbeliever. As for hearts, we do not judge except by what is apparent; hearts are in the hand of Allah. We rule that the disbeliever and the one who associates partners with Allah, even if he dies without repenting, are to be treated as Muslims, and if he was previously a Muslim, he becomes an apostate from the religion of Islam. As for judging hearts, that is not for us; this belongs to Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He). Yes.
Source
شرح قرة عيون الموحدين [25] — alfawzan.live (1:06:19)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.